Rule Forty Two: The Self-Aggrandizing Website of Gavin Edwards

I noticed U2’s “Running to Stand Still” doesn’t use the title of the song until the very end—are there other songs that do the same trick?

Absolutely, all of them delivering the small charge that comes from delayed gratification. Check out, for example, Peter Gabriel’s “Lead a Normal Life,” George Michael’s “One More Try,” or the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven.” (Rigorously insisting that the singer not repeat or riff on that final lyric excludes contenders such as Prince’s “Ballad of Dorothy Parker.”) Unfortunately, none of these songs really lend themselves to Penn and Teller’s suggestion of how to behave when you’re in a movie theater and a character says the movie’s title for the first time: clap politely.

(Excerpted from the 2006 book Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton’s Little John?: Music’s Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed, published by Three Rivers Press, written by Gavin Edwards.)